Rumor: Apple Won’t Make The Full Leap To OLED Just Yet Because Of Pricing

It appears that Apple won’t be making the complete switch to OLED screen technology just yet. The rumored upcoming iPhones that Apple plans to release in September will feature two devices with an OLED display and one cheaper smartphone with a regular LCD panel. Some rumors even mention that only one of the new phones would come with OLED, and the other two would feature an LCD panel. In any case, it’ll be interesting to see which screen technologies Apple will use for the next-generation iPhones.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple will continue this strategy of cheaper devices with LCD because of cost reasons, and because the iPhone X didn’t sell as much as the company had hoped.

The sources of The Wall Street Journal mention that Apple isn’t planning to make the full switch just yet, according to their knowledge of component deliveries. They estimate that Apple will make the full switch to OLED eventually, but it won’t come sooner than 2020. It’s also unclear if Apple is planning to use OLED displays on the iPad. This means that the next two iPhone generations in 2018 and 2019 will most certainly offer a cheaper LCD variant of the phones as well.

Aside from costs, disappointing sales of the OLED iPhone X were also a major reason not to make the switch just yet. The LCD iPhones – including the iPhone 8 series – sold noticeably more than the X.

An OLED display for the iPhone X would cost Apple a hundred dollars, while a similar LCD display costs less than half at an estimated 40 dollars. OLED is still a relatively new technology, meaning that the production process is noticeably more expensive than LCD. Production of the organic LED panels is steadily increasing, however, and it’s estimated that the production costs will continue to decrease in costs.

Another interesting note from the insiders of The Wall Street Journal mentions that Apple would be considering to purchase OLED displays from LG Display Co in addition to the displays they currently buy from Samsung. The Pixel 2 series from Google and some LG smartphones already use the displays from LG, although the general consensus is that they suffer from worse color reproduction than their Samsung counterparts.